Tag Archives: trust

A short interview has just been uploaded to my BIM book’s Amazonpage and I’m reproducing it here for your convenience.

Responding to questions such as “Can you summarize your 270 page book in a sentence?” is a nerve-wracking but effective way to focus the mind – and to see if you can get at the heart of your massive undertaking in short order.

While short, I feel like this brief repartee captures the essence of what I was trying to achieve when first setting out to write BIM and Integrated Design.

Q: How would you summarize your book in a single sentence?

A: The focus throughout this book is on people and the strategies they use to manage and cope with the transition to the new digital technology and the collaborative work process it enables as they initially adopt and then take the technology and process to a higher plane.

Q: Why do we need a book like this now?

A: There’s a crisis not only in the economy but in the profession. Buildings are becoming more and more complex and the way we communicate knowledge to one another is changing. At the same time the construction world is going through enormous changes, so is our environment.

We’ll only be able to tackle today’s complex problems through collaboration, and that takes work and a prepared mindset. You have to be disciplined, can’t just show up and wing it. Your teams’ efforts have to be coordinated and integrated. I noticed that there is a gap in learning along these lines in the profession and industry and this book seeks to fill it.

Q: There are a number of books that cover the subject of BIM. How is this one different?

A: Most books on BIM cover the technology or business case while this one focuses on the process that enables the highest and best use of the technology. BIM and Integrated Design focuses on the people side of the change equation, addressing BIM as a social and firm culture process and does so in four distinctive ways:

it addresses people problems, human issues, issues of communication and collaboration, firm-culture issues, issues of motivation and workflow related to working in BIM;

it explores the most commonly encountered obstacles to successful collaboration, as well as the challenges this technology and process create for individuals and organizations in their labor toward a comprehensive, successful BIM adoption and implementation;

it describes the social impacts and implications of working in BIM on individuals and firms, and how to overcome real and perceived barriers to its use; and

A: There were two lingering questions that I had not been able to answer for myself and that I noticed many architectural firms were also asking: How can BIM advance the profession of architecture? And, how can collaboration assure the survival of the architect? As a result of my research for the book, I was able to uncover some surprising takeaways.

Q: What are a couple of these takeaways that readers would be surprised to find in your book?

A: I think many will be surprised to discover how the introduction of BIM into the workforce has significant HR implications – including education, recruitment, and training – and will welcome the book’s comprehensive review of the most effective ways to learn BIM, no matter where they fall on the learning continuum.

Additionally, readers get to hear arguments in favor of and against the return of the architect in the master builder role, as well as arguments for the virtual master builder and composite master builder or master builder team. Most of those interviewed for the book had a strong opinion on this subject and the result makes for some good reading.

…

Did you find this Q&A helpful? While I realize only by reading the book will I come to learn whether I achieved what I had set out to accomplish, let me know whether this post gives you a better understanding of what the book is about. Thanks!

Another book takes a different approach to building trust. Building the High-Trust Organization: Strategies for Supporting Five Key Dimensions of Trust, provides an easy-to-administer model and instrument for measuring and managing trust in organizations.

The five critical dimensions from the title are Competence, Openness and Honesty, Concern for Others, Reliability, and Identification.

Creating an environment of trust is at the very heart of team success.

This book answers the question: how do you create and build trust in your team?

Trust crash

As one commenter put it:

In a time of unprecedented mergers, government sponsored buy-outs, the collapse of financial institutions, organizational restructuring and layoffs has resulted in a “trust crash” among employees and stakeholders.

And even at that time it was recognized that blogs and wikis were tools for transparency.

So where have we been all this time?

As with so many things, the AEC industry is only catching-up with transparency now.

In addition to perceived inefficiencies in the current delivery model and renewed scrutiny on costs and budgets some of the most significant drivers of change in the construction industry include lack of trust, too much conflict and a desire for transparency.

IPD is a clever solution to the tough organizational and contracting problems faced in today’s market, relying on careful participant selection, continuing dialog and transparency. And finally,

Lean construction tries to increase transparency between the stakeholders, managers and trades in order to know the impact of their work on the whole project while PMI doesn’t consider transparency in its methods.

So Why Are We Still Talking About It?

It may seem obvious, but even on integrated design teams we want different things.

We may have signed an agreement stating that we’ll all work for the good of the project, sharing in profit or loss, gain or pain.

For better or for worse.

But the contractor is hard-wired to still want easy-in/easy-out of the jobsite.

And the architect – bless her – doesn’t want the design intent to carry through to the completed project.

Screw intent.

Let’s be perfectly transparent. (What’s with this “intent” anyway?)

She wants the design to carry through.

Period.

Not to mention there’s a long history of distrust and aggressive behavior between the various parties.

What You Need to Know

You need to know that you can trust your teammate.

That you’re all here to serve the project – in service to the owner.

That you have – first the project’s, then the owner’s, then each other’s and lastly your own – best interests in mind.

You need to know if you’re going to pull your pants down behind the garage that they’re going to pull their pants down too and not just stand there pointing and laughing.

In public ridicule and shame.

You need to know that.

Open Book, Open Door

If you go open book, you need to know that they’re going to do the same.

And that their use of the phrase “open book” matches your definition – and understanding – word for word.

It’s really quite simple.

To restore trust, talk straight.

And carry a big stick.

To level the playing field, be accessible, accountable and don’t exaggerate, overstate

or conceal.

And don’t say you have an open door policy because your office doesn’t have a door.

7 Habits of Truly Transparent Professionals

1. The Truly Transparent know what they want.

2. The Truly Transparent are immune to artifice.

They hear what is meant, not what is said.

And they say it back to you in their own words.

Until you hear it.

And they’re not concerned about appearances.

They’re concerned about being understood.

3. The Truly Transparent are direct.

They’re bold without being off-putting.

And remember, being bold isn’t the same as being blunt any more than being direct is the same as being offensive.

Transparency isn’t the same as saying everything that pops into your head irrespective of your audience and their feelings.

We couch our impressions, observations and feelings in terms that we judge others can understand and handle.

It’s one of the ironies of our times that you can be more transparent by couching what you say than by just letting it all hang out.

4. The Truly Transparent appear to be fearless.

Especially in situations where they have to show all their cards.

5. The Truly Transparent say it like it is.

They don’t hold back.

They don’t mince words.

They pull no punches.

Or try to pull one over on you.

They don’t obfuscate with professional language.

They don’t use words like obfuscate or tendentious (especially tendentious.)

They don’t say “fenestration” when they mean “window.”

They don’t speak in academic talk.

They choose their words carefully.

But you only hear their meaning not the words.

And understand, along with Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., that a word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged; it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and time in which it is used.

They understand that.

6. The Truly Transparent are upfront with you.

They hide nothing.

Because they have nothing to hide.

7. The Truly Transparent don’t muddy the waters.

They’re crystal clear – don’t use double entendres.

Wouldn’t know a double entendre if it hit them.

They don’t tell stories and anecdotes where a “yes” will do.

They listen more than they say.

Trust – But First Conduct an Incredibly Technical and Detailed Background Check

In an interview for my forthcoming book (there he goes with his book again) I asked:

What would you suggest to an architect, when offered an opportunity to work on a project utilizing an integrated design platform – with shared risk and shared reward – and their reaction is along the lines of “No way! Why would I risk my profit on someone else not making mistakes?” As in, “Why sign on to a project whose payoff relies on the other guy not screwing up?” Does it all come down to their comfort with risk – or is there something else going on here?

Here’s what the interviewee said:

If I were advising them, I would tell them as part of the advisory board to conduct an incredibly technical and detailed background check of every person who’s going to be on this team. A complete due diligence: all the way back to what they were doing in college. Find out from other projects they’ve done, other owners they’ve worked with, other developers and architects they’ve worked with, how many suits they’ve had, what their story is. If there’s a red herring or a red flag, I’d want to be all over that initially. Would they be able to work together? If everyone sees it as a benefit to everyone involved, if it’s a requirement for my getting the job, then I’ll have to weigh it against other projects I may have going at the time and the market outlook. It seems like less of a headache if I can make it easier on myself and sign a contract that says this is what I’m responsible for, the heck with the rest of you. On paper, it looks fantastic. Get everybody to sit at the same table, hammer out all the details, so we can avoid some of the hassles that normally arrive later. I see tremendous advantages for being able to do it, if everybody trusts everybody at the table; you can save yourself a lot of trouble.

How to be Perfectly Transparent without People Seeing through You

My life is like a glass of water, transparent. – Skakira

How to be perfectly transparent?

Know your audience. Understand their needs – what it is that they are looking for. Then try to give it to them.

Be direct – no indirections – this is not the time for poetic license, metaphors or similes. Be concrete.

As Pablo Picasso said: Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.

That’s a good quote. Don’t use quotes where the truth will do.

They’ll appreciate you for it.

And trust you for it.

And to be perfectly transparent, being transparent isn’t always a positive thing.

As when Dean Koontz wrote thatthe manipulation that all politicians use on one level or another is so transparent.

So keep in mind that even bad behavior can be transparent.

“I don’t know if I can trust you.”

When someone says “I don’t know if I can trust you” – or more directly, “I don’t trust you” – what they are really saying is

This time of year, when many find themselves indoors, is a great time to catch up – and even get ahead of the pack – on several neglected fronts. Here are my top 77 suggestions for getting ahead in Integrated Design. All pretested, these promise to be a good investment of your time. Best of all, many of the suggestions in this list can be read or watched or even had for free or for very little cost. The 77 things you can do right now to help make Integrated Design a reality will not only benefit the design profession and construction industry, but by helping to move the field forward you may also find that you have helped yourself along the way.

Do you have other links to favorite sources you would like to share?

1. Listen in on a free conference call with Stephen M. R. Covey on the subject of trust

2. Or read the book that the call is based on, The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything,with one eye on how practicing mutual trust makes Integrated Design possible.

3. Still not convinced that increasing trust is the answer? Check out this video or listen to this summary of the book

4.Pick up a copy and read George Elvin’s Integrated Practice in Architecture: Mastering Design-Build, Fast-Track, and Building Information Modeling The world’s only book dedicated to this subject.

5. Read Creating with Others: The Practice of Imagination in Life, Art and the Workplace by Shaun McNiff where a master teacher provides important lessons on how to create together in a collaborative environment.

6. Share some info with someone you don’t normally trust or work with right now and see the results – if it negatively affects you or your firm (you might be surprised by the results)

7. Make it an effort to say “we” instead of “I” for an entire day. Get inspired by taking a look at The Power of We

8. Share AIA’s document on IPD with another practitioner and discuss its strengths and weaknesses.

9. Had a hunch that you could learn a thing or two about collaboration from understanding the secrets of improvisational theater? You were right and they’re all here in Keith Sawyer’s breathtaking Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration, 60% off at Amazon

24. Put down your current book and pick up Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration by Robert Hargrove a copy of which can be yours here for 33 cents! Or get a summary here.

25. Think about why you originally went into your field and whether persuing Integrated Design will allow you to do what you originally wanted to do

26. Turn your firm into a collaboration factory. See how other fields are accomplishing it in The Culture of Collaboration: Maximizing time, talent and tools to create value in the global economy by Evan Rosen.

27. Look here to read Integrated Project Delivery and BIM: Changing the Way the Industry Operates

29. Practice self-sacrifice while reading fiction. Mark Helprin’s short story collection, The Pacific and Other Stories, contains an incisive story entitled “Monday,” an honorable contractor willing to sacrifice other contracts and his own reputation to renovate the home of a woman whose husband was killed on September 11 learns “the power of those who had done right.” Read it.

30. Look for an opportunity to hear Choreographer Twyla Tharp discuss The Collaborative Habit at a theater near you.

31. Still not convinced collaboration works? Niether is Berkeley professor and author Morten T. Hansen in Harvard Business review book Collaboration: How leaders avoid the traps, create unity and reap big results. Read it for free here but after reading Good to Great author Jim Collin’s insightful foreword you’re going to want to buy a copy for yourself and those you work with.

32. Still not convinced collaboration within your firm always a good thing? Watch this video

43. In fact, check out President of Collaborative Construction Resources James Salmon’s blog for great insights into all thing related to Integrated Design

44. Soak-up the great stories in choreographer Twyla Tharp’s latest bestseller, The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons for Working Together. The book is short – you could down it in an hour – but the anecdotes, quotes and lessons will live long with you and bear repeating.

45. While you’re at it, reread Tharp’s inspiring and peerless The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

46. Visit the DesignIntelligence.blog from time to time for inspiration and insight into integrated design trends and best practices.

47. I recently interviewed architect Paul Durand of Winter Street Architects for my forthcoming book, BIM and Integrated Design: Strategies for Practice (Wiley, 2011) after reading Paul’s inspiring article about his firm’s adjustments to and eventual mastery of the technology and work processes involved with Integrated Design.

49. Watch this Harvard Business Review video of an interview with Daniel Goleman, Psychologist. See how you can use emotional and social intelligence to improve your own and your organization’s performance

50. Find a question or problem that you have been noodling on and share it with your network by posting it on a LinkedIn group discussion.

51. Calibrate your progress: If you haven’t in a while, revisit your threadbare copy of Finith Jernigan’s BIG BIM little bim – The practical approach to Building Information Modeling – Integrated practice done the right way! The book that started it all.

52. Assess yourself in this video from the bestselling author of EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE and SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE author Daniel Goleman on how socially intelligent you are.

53. Dust off your copy of The Wisdom of Teams and see how much you’ve learned from it and have integrated into your own practice

54.Listen to Cisco CEO John Chambers explain how abandoning command-and-control leadership has enabled his company to innovate more quickly, using collaboration and teamwork.

55. Connect with other Integrated Design cohorts on LinkedIn

56. Reread Working with Emotional Intelligence – this time with an eye on IPD. Don’t have it? Read the first chapter here.

57. Ask a contractor to lunch or for an after work drink – discuss their observations and insights about the architecture profession – they’ll appreciate it (Recommendation: stay on their turf, take them to Carmichaels or another contractor hang out)

58. Reread your copy of Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets: How to Fix America’s Trillion-Dollar Construction Industry from the viewpoint of how integrated design promises to fix what ails the AEC industry.

59.Read an interview with Barry LePatner on the promise of integrated design in the construction industry in the article, “Unreconstructed,” by Zach Patton published in Governing magazine

60. MacArthur Fellow, New Yorker staff writer and acclaimed surgeon Atul Gawande’s fascinating new book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, has a chapter entitled The End of the Master Builder where he argues that Integrated Design is the one way the construction industry will contend with ever-increasing complexities. Read it. Amazon has it on sale for 65% off.

61. Still too expensive? You can watch a presentation Atul Gawande gave at the New Yorker Festival this past October. His talk was entitled Death of the Master Builder

62. And even read post about Atul Gawande’s presentation at The New Yorker blog.

63. Already mastered Integrtaed Design and all it entails? See Beyond IPD: The Integrated Enterprise Challenge

64. Wondering how to market IPD for your firm? See this this or better yet this

65. Overlook the misleading title, pour yourself a cup or glass and dig into Bauman Lyons Architects highly entertaining and enlightening book on integrated design practices and outcomes, How to Be a Happy Architect

66. Or watch this video of integrated design architect Irena Bauman [of How to be a happy architect fame] taking the Guardian editor, Martin Wainwright, for a stroll around Leeds.

67. Learn ways how you can become an ENFP (you might have an easier time in IPD)

69. Or even better, visit the AIA’s incredibly rich and rewarding site featuring this essay as well as Thom Mayne’s 2009 follow-up amongst many others: 2009 and Beyond | Revisiting the Report on Integrated Practice

70. Still skeptical? Do a comparison of IPD and other delivery methods D+B, DBB, etc – list pros and cons and to see how IPD holds up

71. Be the change you want to see – do a presentation for your firm on IPD – or organize one with outside speakers, if only to start a discussion

72. Invite a contractor into your office to speak about their experiences working in IPD, BIM, architects…

73. You still feel like IPD is just a renaming of something you’ve been doing for ages? List what is the same – and what is different – so that you have an accurate tally in your assessment

74. Look into what additional equipment, resources and facilities/space you might need to take-on an IPD project in your office – make your office IPD friendly BEFORE you need it

75. Look for ways to merge – integrate – your religious or spiritual life with IPD

76. Watch this video and learn about IPD from the perspective of an acclaimed surgeon

And a bonus suggestion: Take an online personality self-assessment or other on your communication type – to see how you relate with others, identifying areas for improvement (FYI historically most architects are ENFJ’s with 10% as ENFP’s.) Free reliable assessments are also available with a little searching.

These are my top 77 suggestions for invigorating your commitment to working collaboratively in an Integrated Design environment. Do you have other links to favorite sources or suggestions you would like to share?

“The architect who combines in his being the powers of vision, of imagination, of intellect, of sympathy with human need and the power to interpret them in a language vernacular and time—is he who shall create poems in stone.” Kindergarten Chats on Architecture, published in 1901 in which Louis Sullivan, as a master architect, teaches a fictional student his principles of architecture and philosophy.

Maybe it’s time we have a kindergarten chat? In a recent online group discussion, I asked two questions:

What is the right place to learn the habits, mindsets and attitudes required for design professionals and others in the construction industry to work effectively in an integrated environment?

and

If the current generation of emerging design professionals didn’t learn the habits, mindsets and attitudes critical for working effectively in a BIM and IPD environment in kindergarten, when will they pick it up?

Responses kept coming, dozens and dozens of insightful comments in all. One thing that is clear from the comments is that we should have learned these basic habits, attitudes and mindsets such as trust, sharing and collaborating in kindergarten. But it has become apparent to many – especially to owners and contractors – that these values weren’t picked up by their design professionals in kindergarten –or any time since.

So what to do?

Before we all take crash courses to rekindle these basic – but critical – values and practices, it makes sense to address what needs learning and when best to learn it, so that we remain relevant and effective practitioners for those we work with and advise. To this point there are roughly three schools of thought.

BIM and IPD: Three Schools of Thought

Integratedprojectdelivery (IPD) integrates all team members–owner, architect, construction manager, engineers, and subcontractors–to form a collaborative effort, seeks input from project team members at the onset of the project, allows team members to leverage Building Information Modeling (BIM) by creating a virtual design of every element of a construction project as well as its process.

As a school of thought is a collection or group of people who share common characteristics of opinion or outlook, this might be an effective way of categorizing the range of attitudes we carry about what’s important for design professionals to know – and when they need to know it.

BIM/IPD School of Thought 1: All I Really Need to Know about BIM and IPD I Learned in Kindergarten

My 14 year old son is learning BIM software this year at his high school. He and his peers find the software intuitive and pick it up quite readily.

With IPD, the focus is usually on Early Goal Definition, Intensified Planning, Appropriate Technology, Organization and Leadership. While these are important, as a process IPD is based on some very basic values and principles that unless mastered by all involved, the project will fail. These include: Mutual Respect and Trust, Mutual Benefits and Rewards, Collaborative Innovation and Decisions, Open Communication and Sharing of information.

An early reviewer of my in-progress book on BIM and Integrated Design summed it up this way: “Perhaps one of the most important benefits wouldn’t even cross your mind, and this book attempts to explain it succinctly: Integrated Design and BIM require a much different mindset, and this mindset requires collaboration, coordination, team work, and knowledge sharing in order to succeed. This is not an option, this is a prerequisite.”

Some feel we should have picked-up these principles and values in kindergarten but either didn’t or weren’t paying attention. More likely, we did learn – but unlearned them in the years since – especially once we left the cocoon of school and embarked on the hard knocks of a career in architecture and construction. There we learned to be mistrustful, skeptical, competitive, secretive, working independently out of silos. In other words – we unlearned all of the critical habits, attitudes and mindsets necessary to work on an integrated team – and be effective practitioners today for those who need us most.

This line of thinking is perhaps best exemplified by this comment from a recent discussion:

“Modeling/BIM as a craft/technical skill should be taught freshman year, just as pre-arch curricula traditionally taught drafting and rendering. As far as integration/collaboration goes, however, that’s a skill students (and professionals) should have picked up by Kindergarten…”

BIM/IPD School of Thought 2: All I Really Need to Know about BIM and IPD I Learned in College

For others, college is the best time to address these work habits and attitudes. One commenter put it like thus:

“This whole ‘change’ which is coming in our world has to be based on a foundation of trust, respect and a willingness to let one’s ego take a back seat to the ‘team’, the project and the client. If you can get the students & future architects to embrace this new way of working and thinking, early, I feel that they would be starting out on the right foot towards this new way of working.”

BIM/IPD School of Thought 3: All I Really Need to Know about BIM and IPD I Learned in the Workforce

While many comments stated that school was the ideal place to learn the technology and work processes to work together in an integrated fashion, others thought that this scenario was at best unrealistic, opting for this learning to take place after school – as summarized by this comment:

“As a 50 year-old returning to school for a Master’s in Architecture, I would hope that the program exposes me to the core principles and concept being used today. It is important for students to have an understanding of IPD/BIM and the role they play in our profession. But, the true training will come as they enter the workforce. As mentioned in an earlier comment, many students are still graduating with little to no understanding of the business side of architecture, but, are well versed in the latest computer programs. I think the student should be exposed to what is currently being used in the profession. And then, allow their employment and progression toward licensure to hone those core principles that were taught in school.”

Whatever school of thought you belong to, I am not suggesting here that we return to school to relearn what some of us have unlearned – the hard way – in the midst of our careers during heated discussions, presentations and negotiations.

The hard truth is that owners need more commitment to collaboration – and with that trust and respect – from their architects and general contractors.

Perhaps it is time for a kindergarten chat – starting with one that we have with ourselves and then perhaps branching out to chats with our colleagues – where we refresh our memory and recommit ourselves to the basic but all-important values and principles that IPD is based on: mutual respect and trust, sharing, open communication and cooperation. Perhaps this is one all-critical commitment we can keep in what promises to be a pivotal year for our industry and profession.

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AECbytes
AECbytes is an online publication launched by Dr. Lachmi Khemlani in Nov 2003. It is focused on researching, analyzing, and reviewing technology products and services for the building industry.

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